


Cyberwolf

by Miya_Morana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Cybernetics, Cyborgs, Genius!Danny, M/M, Magic, Magic!Stiles, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miya_Morana/pseuds/Miya_Morana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many ways to cheat death if you have the knowledge and the resources, Peter had once said. When your best friends are werewolves and banshees and hunters, who somehow always manage to get mixed up in one life-threatening supernatural mess or another, the idea of cheating death is not something you can easily put aside. So Stiles looks it up.<br/>Peter is probably the person who deserve the least to benefit from all the work Danny and him put into this. But when he dies, it occurs to them that he's the perfect one to test their theories on. And so, Peter comes back from the dead again, this time as a cybernetic werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyberwolf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Robot Big Bang](http://robotbigbang.livejournal.com/). 
> 
> This fic was written over the summer, before Scott actually became an alpha and Derek actually became a beta (though you could already feel it was going to happen), and most importantly before Peter went all maniac at the very end of the season finale. So there are going to be a few incoherence with the last episodes, but nothing major.
> 
> Big thanks to Akadougal for the fast emergency beta!
> 
> Check out [the fanmix](http://looneyngilo2.tumblr.com/post/63607079552/cyberwolf-a-peterxstiles-fanmix) looneyngilo2 made for this fic! :D

There are many ways to cheat death if you have the knowledge and the resources, Peter had once said in one of his weird speeches in which he gives you disturbing information you didn’t want, and none of the information you actually need. They were probably discussing the subject of Lydia’s nature, and wondering how Peter had been able to use that to come back from the dead, which still made absolutely zero sense to Stiles. But the words had stuck in his mind, burrowed deep, and started growing into questions and ideas.

The thing about Stiles is, once an idea takes hold of his curiosity, he’ll usually end up doing all the research about it. Which is great when it’s something useful to the werewolves or for school, and not so great when it has to do with, say, the history of circumcision. Especially when he’s supposed to be writing a boring essay for his Economics class. Damn, Finstock had looked at him strangely for three weeks after that one.

But see, when your best friends are werewolves and banshees and hunters, who somehow always manage to get mixed up in one life-threatening supernatural mess or another, the idea of cheating death is not something you can easily put aside. So Stiles looks it up. He looks up a lot of theories, reads up on a lot of myths, tries to verify what matches with the way the supernatural world really works. Deaton Cora and, through Allison, Chris Argent are his best sources of information, but there’s a lot they don’t know, and even more that they _might_ know but Stiles can’t outright ask.

Fortunately, magic (for lack of a better term) is not the only thing out there, and it’s worth enduring Ethan’s jealous glares and ridiculous threats for the valuable hours spent working with Danny on his little project. (And really, as if there was any chance of Stiles stealing Danny from Ethan.) 

Because Danny gets it, too. Danny’s best friend, though still in Europe most of the time, is also a werewolf. His boyfriend is a werewolf. He’s always been close to Lydia. And he’s smart enough to know that the dysfunctional group that passes as the Beacon Hills Pack has gone through losses and will go through deaths again at some point. Just because no one has died in the last ten months doesn’t change that.

“Ethan would kill me, if he knew what we’re doing,” Danny says one night, as he goes through the latest shipment of supplies that had arrived, sorting things in different, clearly labeled boxes.

“Nonsense,” Stiles says without looking up from the anatomy book he’s reading for the hundredth time. “He would never hurt you. Me, on the other hand, he would probably skin slowly, making sure to keep me alive as long as he can so I suffer.”

Danny throws him a disturbed look, which Stiles catches from the corner of his eye. 

“I’m kidding,” Stiles shrugs, because it’s not funny to make Danny uncomfortable about his boyfriend. He wasn’t entirely joking though. Ethan could be much more scary than Derek has ever been, when he wants to.

“Still, I’m not looking forward to explaining any of this.” Danny sighs and puts the last bit of electronics into a box. “And one day, we’ll have to.”

“Hey, who knows, maybe we’ll never need any of this and it can stay our little secret forever!” Stiles grins, closing his book. “Come on, it’s late, and we do have actual homework to do.”

Danny shakes his head, but he follows Stiles out of the apartment, careful not to break the line of mountain ash as they pass it. Stiles checks that the Celtic symbols painted on the door are still complete. They’re shield spells that Deaton taught him, designed to keep humans off werewolf territory. Just staring at them makes him feel queasy, like he shouldn’t be here, has other places he needs to go, other things he needs to do. That’s the way the magic works: the power of suggestion. It takes Danny and him a lot of willpower to go through that door.

Between that and the mountain ash, their little base located into an empty apartment is safe from the prying eyes of werewolves and humans alike. Stiles isn’t sure if Lydia would be affected, but she fortunately hasn’t turned up on their doorstep yet, demanding explanations.

Stiles’s jeep is parked in a nearby alley, and he takes the wheel as Danny climbs in the passenger seat. He suddenly remembers that his phone had rung before, while they were working, and he’d let it go to voicemail, so he fishes his cell from his pocket and sees two missed calls from Scott.

“What is it?” Danny asks, frowning.

“Don’t know yet,” Stiles replies, pressing the voicemail button to listen to his best friend’s message.

“ _Dude, where the hell are you?_ ” Scott’s voice complains. He sounds annoyed and a little bit alarmed, which has Stiles sitting straighter in his seat. “ _Remember when Cora said she was being followed? Turns out, there are hunters in town. Allison’s dad has arranged a meeting, and he thinks it would help if, you know, the humans of the pack showed up._ ”

“Fuck,” Stiles mutters, holding his phone against his ear with one hand and turning the key in the ignition with the other while listening to Scott’s directions to the meeting place. “You naïve, trusting idiot, Scott,” he says to himself. “When has a meeting between werewolves and hunters ever gone right?”

***

Everything has already gone to hell when they arrive to the distillery (and whose brilliant idea was it to set up the meet there of all places?). There are bullets flying and werewolves roaring and bodies flying through windows. Stiles stops the jeep a reasonable distance from the abandoned building (he doesn’t really want to explain to his car insurance why a extra-heavy werewolf landed on it _again_ ) and Danny and him jump out and run towards the noise of the fight.

The man who’d been thrown out the window gets back to his feet and, after glancing at Danny and Stiles, scampers off with a limp. Good, Stiles thinks. That must mean the werewolves are on top of the fight.

When they get inside, the first thing Stiles sees is Cora, holding a man twice her size up against a wall. Her teeth and claws are out, and she looks freaking badass. The second thing he sees is the woman with the shotgun, aiming at her. He shouts, trying to warn Cora, but there’s so much noise that she doesn’t hear him, doesn’t have the time to move before the woman shoots, three times in quick succession.

Someone else is fast enough to help her though. Leaping down from _somewhere_ , Peter pushes Cora out of the way. They both crash down, Peter on top of his niece, and then Isaac is taking the woman down before she can shoot again.

Danny tugs Stiles against a wall, out of the way of stray bullet (or stray werewolves, since Scott is jumping running toward the man Cora had previously been restraining). Next to them, a hunter who’d been knocked down starts to regain consciousness. Stiles promptly grabs his gun from him while Danny picks up a wooden crate and crashes it on the man’s head. The man falls back down and doesn’t stir again.

Stiles gives Danny a thumbs up with a smile, then looks back to the fight, which is, apparently, over. Isaac, Scott and Derek are restraining the hunters, Allison and her dad are taking the bullets out of the confiscated weapons, and Ethan is helping Cora to get back on her feet.

The woman who’d try to shoot Cora is spitting insults, and Cora walks up to her and punches her in the face, knocking her out. Then she drops to her knees and starts crying.

It’s only then that Stiles realizes Peter didn’t get back up.

It takes a little bit of time for everything to be sorted out. Scott and Allison’s dad speak with someone who seems to be the leader of the hunters (more like shout at and threaten), Ethan checks in on Danny, and once the hunters start to leave, carrying the unconscious ones, everyone gathers around Derek and Cora. 

Stiles watches Scott put a hand over Derek’s shoulder, and Derek silently accepting the reassuring touch of his Alpha. Allison uncharacteristically gives Cora a hug, and Cora uncharacteristically accepts is, clinging to Allison. It’s a strange thing to see, given how these two usually barely speak to each other.

Slowly, Stiles walks up to where Peter’s body is still lying face down on the floor. He crouches down, turns him over, and flinches at the sight. The bullets had been explosive, and probably laced with wolfsbane on top of it. One had caught Peter in his guts, another one had obliterated his shoulder, and the third one had caught the left side of his face, taking off an ear and part of his jaw. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Stiles couldn’t say he was feeling particularly sad at the loss of Peter Hale. He’d never trusted the man, always suspected he’d had some sort of ulterior motive. And who could blame him? Peter had abducted Stiles, mauled Lydia almost to death, used her to come back to life, been overly unhelpful in half of the problems the pack had encountered, and not to forget he was kind of creepy, in a maybe-I-want-to-eat-you-maybe-I-want-to-molest-you kind of way.

Still. He jumped in front of bullets he knew were designed to kill him to protect his niece. Maybe he hadn’t been such a burnt-out shell of a person after all. Plus, Derek and Cora really didn’t deserve to go through the loss of yet another family member.

“I’ll take care of him,” Derek says from behind Stiles’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to,” Danny steps in. “We can take care of things here. You guys should go heal up, be a pack, take care of each other. Your sister needs you now.”

“Are you sure?” Derek asks.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, going back on his feet and turning to face Derek. “It’s the least we can do. Maybe if we’d been here on time, none of this would have…”

“Dude, it was an ambush,” Scott cuts in softly. “I’m glad you were late and didn’t get hurt.”

Stiles gratefully accepts the hug from his best friend.

“Okay,” he breathes out. “Still, we’ll take care of it. Bury him somewhere in the woods, make sure he has a proper grave and all. Go be a pack, all of you.”

“You guys are part of the pack too, you should be with us.”

“We’ll stop by Derek’s loft when we’re done,” Danny promises.

Ethan drags him into a hug, then kisses him. “Don’t take too long.”

The werewolves leave and the Argents start cleaning up the mess in the distillery. Stiles knows they’ll have to let his dad know what happened here, at least in part, before someone starts asking too many questions about the numerous bullet holes and claw marks. It’s not a conversation he’s looking forward to.

Danny and him grab Peter’s body and carry it to the jeep. He’s heavy and slippery and it’s impossible to get a good hold on his destroyed shoulder, so it takes them a little while. They’re leaving pools of blood and _other things_ Stiles doesn’t want to think about behind them.

“We’ll clean it up,” Allison tells him as she holds the jeep’s door open for them. “Just get rid of the body.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, sharing a look with Danny.

Peter’s corpse smears blood all over the backseat, and it’s going to be hell to clean that up. Stiles dries off his bloodied hands on his jeans, then climbs into the driver seat, Danny sitting next to him. They look at each other, and Danny’s eyes seem to be asking the same question that has been going on a loop in Stiles’s head since he’d rolled over Peter’s body.

_Do we do it? Do we try to bring him back?_

“He’s already had his second chance at life,” Stiles says, unconvinced, as he turns the key into the ignition. “Plus, he’s a creep.”

“I know,” Danny replies. He’s still staring at Stiles though, still asking that question with his eyes as they drive away.

“We’re not even sure it would work,” Stiles continues. “For all we know, the process could bring back a soulless monster, an empty shell. Even more so than Peter already was.”

Danny doesn’t say anything.

“Maybe it’s not a good idea altogether,” Stiles continues, unnerved by Danny’s silence and by the smell of blood. “What if we try it on someone we care about and we mess up horribly? What if we don’t have the willpower to pull the plug when things go awry?”

“What if we try it on someone we _don’t_ care about?” Danny says softly, and Stiles is glad, so glad, not to have been the one to do that, the one to suggest _experimenting on the dead_.

God, that’s really fucked up, he realizes.

Stiles drums his fingers against the wheel as he stops at an intersection. The road on his left goes deeper into the wood, the one on his right leads to the part of town where they have their lab set up. He exchanges another look with Danny then nods, short and fast, before turning right.

***

Danny is more of the science guy of the pair, and Stiles was selfishly hoping he’s handle the gory job on his own. One look from him and Stiles knew that wasn’t going to be the case. So here he is, carefully hooking up the edge of a tube and Peter’s intestines, trying not to either throw up or pass out, while Danny works on Peter’s face. 

Next to him, Stiles can feel Peter’s heart beat slowly, stimulated by artificial electric charges. Another piece of electronics is making him breathe, low and steady. Peter’s flesh is warm under his hands.

It’s all artificial though, just mechanics still working. Peter hasn’t stirred since they restarted his heart and got rid of the wolfsbane poisoning. Of course he hasn’t. He’s dead.

That’s the thing about the spell Stiles found. It can bring back someone, but only if the person’s body hasn’t been healed by magic, and after that the person who was brought back is incapable of healing. At all. Which is problematic, to say the least. 

Cybernetics had been the logical solution, in Stiles’s mind. It would keep the body from deteriorating while he worked the very long spell that would cheat death, and in this case it would replace the damaged parts. Of course, in the future Peter will have to avoid further wounds, especially fatal ones. That’s a long stretch, given how Beacon Hills seems to attract all the supernatural baddies.

Sometimes, Stiles wonders if the town hadn’t been built on the remains of Sunnydale. A Hellmouth would certainly explain a lot of things.

He wipes his brow with the clean part of his sleeve, then washes the blood off his hands. All the internal work is done. The shoulder was reattached by Danny earlier, and apparently he’s almost done with Peter’s face, too. They obviously don’t have access to skin grafts or anything like this, so the articulations and the wiring are still apparent. 

They have metal plates that they can shape later to cover it all up. They’ll use it on the shoulder and the stomach, too. Later, when they don’t have a grieving pack waiting for them. Stiles takes a deep breath, looking at Danny’s handiwork. There’s no way Peter will be able to walk out in public unless it’s Halloween. No way.

“Alright, the main job is done,” Danny declares, walking up to the sink to wash his hands. “We need to get going.”

Stiles nods, taking his eyes off the dead cyberwerewolf on the table.

***

It’s two days later when they finally get back to the apartment-slash-laboratory. Between the pack and Danny making sure Ethan didn’t suspect anything, they’ve barely had the time to swing by and pump proteins and vitamins into Peter’s bloodstream.

Peter, for all his wires and electronics, doesn’t look dead. He looks asleep. Almost peaceful. Especially if he only looks at the right side of his face. Stiles spends a couple of minutes just admiring the wonders of _science_ , then he takes out the metal plates he’s started shaping and checks how they fit.

They decided to finish the “cosmetic touches” before bringing him back, for the very good reason that they’ll have to screw the damn thing on and it would probably be more complicated on a live, most likely angry psychopathic werewolf. Also, more painful for said werewolf.

Stiles has a good eye for shapes, so they fit pretty well. The piece that goes over the hole in Peter’s stomach is partially articulate, but it’s the ones for the shoulder and the jaw that give him the most work, and he’s glad when Danny arrives and helps him.

“Done,” Danny says once the last screw has gone in. He puts a hand on Peter’s chin and the other one on his forehead, then proceeds to open and close Peter’s mouth, just to check that all the little metal plaques move correctly. “He’s in working order. Now time to see if it was worth all the hard work.”

He stares at Stiles, who nods slowly and opens a cardboard box on the shelf. Danny helps him out, placing the candles in the right spots and tracing a few symbols on the floor with white chalk. They lower Peter’s body at the center of the circle, and though the guy hadn’t been a light-weight by a long shot before, it was now worse, with all the metal in his body.

“All set,” Stiles says, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

This wasn’t his first time working a complicated spell. He’d helped out Deaton a lot, and the emissary had said numerous times that Stiles had a lot of raw power. The way he’d said it had creeped Stiles out a little bit, though.

“You can do this,” Danny tells him with confidence, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Stiles nods, then takes a deep breath.

“Alright. Stay outside of the circle, don’t say anything and don’t come back inside. Unless I faint or something.”

“Unless you faint or something,” Danny repeats, and there’s just a hint of that teasing tone of his. It’s familiar, and it helps settling Stiles’s nerves somewhat.

The thing about druid’s magic is that it involves as much precision as belief and willpower. It’s hard to keep concentrating on his _intent_ when it the same time Stiles has to chant (remembering the Gaelic words, the melody, the rhythm), pour various herbs and powders and brews into various bowls or across the floor, and make the right gestures at the right time. Completing a 10-feet-long line of mountain ash with only a handful of it left is a piece of cake compared to this.

By the end of it, Stiles would like to do nothing else than just lie on the ground for a few hours. But he can’t really do that, because Peter is sitting up, screaming, his claws scraping the floor, eyes glowing electric blue and teeth elongating. The metal on his cheek, covering his jaw and left ear, complains as it wasn’t made to accommodate this face but Peter’s human one.

“Peter!” Danny calls, more alert than Stiles at this point. “Peter, you’re okay! You’re…” 

Danny has crossed the distance and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, like he does to Ethan when he’s too far gone in his rage and someone needs to bring him back. But Peter isn’t Ethan and Danny doesn’t mean the same thing to him than he does to Ethan, so the cyberwolf pushes him off and Danny crashes against a shelf, hard.

Stiles pulls a whistle out of his pocket and blows in it. Peter turns his head to snarl at him, and Stiles blows again, harder. He can see the wolfsbane dust fly in the air, can see the moment it hits Peter. His face turns back to normal and his claws retract, leaving Peter blinking confusedly in the center of the room.

“What was that?” Danny asks, rubbing his shoulder.

“A little trick I picked up from our Darach friend a two years ago,” Stiles explain, stuffing the whistle back into his pocket. “Although this particular strand of wolfsbane acts more like an inhibitor for the wolves.”

“Where am I?” Peter asks, shaking his head slightly. “What… Cora! Where is Cora, is she–?”

“She’s fine,” Stiles reassures him, still keeping his distance. “Thanks to you. You died to save her, I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I died?” Peter asks, raising a single eyebrow (a move that Stiles hadn’t managed to master in spite of a lot of long hours spent practicing in the mirror).

“Yeaaahhh, about that,” Stiles starts, then rubs his neck nervously, not knowing how to go on.

He doesn’t have to though, because Peter’s eyes have fallen on his shoulder. He moves it, slowly, testing the nervous connections.

“What the hell?”

“Surprise!” Stiles says in a fake excited voice. “You’re now a cyborg. Or a cyberwolf. I like that one better.”

***

Once Peter puts on a shirt (which is sad, because Peter’s chest is almost as hot as Derek’s, even with the metal plates on it, or maybe _especially_ with the metal plates), you could almost not notice that something is wrong with him. As long as you don’t look at his face, that is.

And therein lies the problem the three of them are facing: Peter cannot go out in the streets, cannot leave the apartment Danny and Stiles have turned into a lab. He’s stuck. Which means Danny and Stiles are stuck bringing him food and news from the outside and awkwardly keeping him company for a few hours every day, in part because they feel guilty and in part to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t go all psycho on them. Again.

Well, since Danny lives with a werewolf with a keen sense of smell and Stiles still lives with his dad, who spends most of his time at the police station or out on patrols and resolutely doesn’t want to know about any of the werewolf stuff unless it involves murders, it’s mostly Stiles who gets to spend his afternoon with everyone’s favorite _un_ undead uncle. Thank goodness it’s the summer break, and Scott and Allison are finally back together, so Stiles has a lot of free time on his hands. 

He opens the door with one hand and trudges inside with a bag full of groceries, almost glad that Peter made them get rid of the mountain ash. Even though he can’t go out, he felt trapped inside and it was making him aggressive, well, more so than usual.

If the pack shows up, though, they’ll know the truth and Stiles and Danny will face the consequences. And really, how do you explain that you’ve been harboring an undead cyberwolf in the apartment in which you’ve been preparing to bring back to life the next member of the pack to bite the dust? Not to mention the fact that Peter doesn’t want to be seen like this.

Yeah, Stiles and Danny’s plan had had that one fatal flaw of not thinking about what would happen _after_ resurrecting the dead. Quite a big oversight, in retrospective.

Stiles drops the grocery bag on the kitchen table and wanders into the bedroom, which also serves of living room since the actual living room has been turned into a cybernetic lab. Peter is sitting cross-legged on the small bed, head bent over the book Stiles brought him the previous day.

“I saw Cora this morning,” Stiles says, standing awkwardly next to the door. “She insulted me, so she’s doing better.”

“Good,” Peter says, closing his book with a sigh. Do you know what they’re doing with my apartment?”

“Isaac was talking about moving in, but I think Scott wants to keep it as a safe house of sorts. No one’s talking about selling it, so when we finally tell them, you’ll be able to move back in easily.”

“Stiles,” Peter says coldly, giving him a look that makes him squirm a little bit. “We’re not telling them.”

Stiles averts his eyes, because he _doesn’t_ want to tell them, doesn’t want to face Scott’s betrayed look when he realizes he’s been hiding something so huge from his best friend. But at the same time, he knows that they can’t go on like this forever, and that the separation from the pack can’t be good for Peter’s mental stability. Which has always been wonky, for as long as Stiles has known him.

“Brought you today’s newspapers,” he says, to change the subject. “I know, I know, you have the Internet, you know what’s happening in the world, but the Beacon Hills Herald is good for the local new. Also, food in the kitchen.”

Peter sighs, resting his head against the wall at his back. The light shines off the metal plates on his cheek. “I’m so bored.”

***

“Honey, I’m hoooome!” Stiles calls as he enters the apartment. 

He’s ready for Peter’s glare when he enters the bedroom, ready to thrust a pizza under his knows to apologize for his bad humor, but Peter doesn’t even look up from his laptop. He’s mashing the arrow keys and the WASD, which means he’s _gaming_ , and Stiles’s brain finds it slightly difficult to comprehend the idea of an undead cyborg werewolf playing video games.

Stiles walks up to the desk and takes a look at the screen. He doesn’t recognize the game, but the layout reminds him a little bit of the old school Zelda games. Not that Stiles has ever played those (he’s too young to have had a NES), but he saw some gameplay on the internet.

The enemies are kind of a cross between cute and disturbingly gore, and Stiles shakes his head, because somehow that is _so_ Peter.

“I brought pizza,” he says when Peter’s cleared the room of all the enemies. 

“Good,” Peter says, hitting pause.

They end up sharing the pizza while sitting on the bed and watching the news on the TV. Peter moves his shoulder around, like you do when an articulation aches, and Stiles tries to not stare at the metal shining under his V-neck. After the third time, though, he can’t help it, has to ask.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” Peter replies dismissively, grabbing the remote.

He surfs through several channels before settling on a rerun of _How I Met You Mother_. It occurs to Stiles that, having spent six years in a coma, Peter might not have seen those at all before.

After a few minutes of silence, Stiles starts tapping his fingers on his knees. He’s getting bored, and he’s never been a huge fan of that show in spite of its great cast anyway. God, is that what Peter feels like all day? It’s been three weeks now, and Peter hasn’t set a foot outside. Stiles bites his lip, then looks at his watch. If he hurries, he could make it.

“I’ll be back a little bit later,” he says, jumping off the bed and gathering the empty pizza box.

“You don’t have to,” Peter replies.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” Stiles repeats with confidence.

***

Peter is playing again when Stiles comes back a few hours later, mumbling at the screen about unfair room layouts. He looks up from the screen, on which is character is down to half a heart, and frowns.

“It’s a bit late for your visits,” he comments.

It’s true, Stiles never drops by at 11 pm, but there’s a reason for the late hour. Stiles opens his backpack and takes out the bright red hoodie he bought earlier at the mall. He tosses it at Peter, who catches it with his left hand, wincing slightly.

“What the hell is this thing for?” he asks, sounding annoyed.

“This, my friend, is to hide your face while we make our way to the car and drive across town. You spend too much time cooked up in here, you need fresh air and you know it.”

“My friend?” Peter asks, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Take it or leave it, the offer expires in thirty seconds. We’ll be going well away from the pack’s territory, so no need to worry about that.”

Peter lets out a long-suffering sigh, looks at his computer, and quits the game, mumbling that he wouldn’t have survived much longer anyway.

“Why red?” he asks as he puts the hoodie on. “Black would have been more inconspicuous.”

“And pass the opportunity of countless Little Red Riding Hood jokes?” Stiles grins. 

“Do I look little to you?” Peter asks, stalking closer to Stiles.

“You might have more muscles, but you’re shorter than me, Red,” Stiles says, standing his ground even though he’s suddenly feeling very intimidated.

“It’s barely noticeable,” Peter replies, smiling with half of his mouth.

It looks weird, because it’s the side that the metal plates are on, and they move in a way that vaguely resembles dimples. Very screwed up dimples.

“Um, let’s go,” Stiles says, turning around and exiting the room.

He could swear he hears Peter laugh softly before following him. It’s the first time since the resurrection he’s heard that. Actually, it’s probably the first time he’s heard Peter laugh period, now that he thinks of it.

They meet one of the neighbors in the staircase down (the elevator is busted again), and Stiles says hi out of habit. He’s here so often that the people of the building must think he actually lives here.

“Hey kid,” the woman says, eyes shifting between Stiles and Peter, who has thankfully already pulled the hood on his head. “You’re not with that cute Hawaiian boy anymore, I see?”

There’s a note of reproach or worry in her voice, like she’s judging Stiles’s life choices, and Stiles suddenly realize she must think he’s now dating Peter, who even with his hood hiding most of his face still looks well in his thirties, which he is. 

Stiles can feel his cheeks redden, because wow, in what universe is he supposed to get hot boyfriends like Danny of Peter? (Never mind the age thing, the werewolf thing, the cyborg thing or the _Peter_ thing as a whole, which Mrs. Parker has no way of knowing about.)

“I’m not, we’re not, Danny’s just a _friend_ , Mrs Parker, and so is _he_!” Stiles says, pointing at Peter.

But he’d forgotten one crucial thing, Peter is a bastard. The werewolf steps closer to Stiles, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on,” he says, “there’s no reason to get so defensive.” 

His voice is literally dripping sex appeal and Stiles’s throat goes dry. Peter let’s his hand linger, and Stiles can see the hint of a smile in the shadow of the hoodie.

“Very nice meeting you,” Peter tells Mrs. Parker, inclining his head slightly.

Mrs. Parker looks between them for a few more seconds, and Stiles is feeling mortified but he doesn’t want to cause a scene. The idea was to get to the car as fast as possible and get the hell out of there. Mrs. Parker must eventually decide that this isn’t any of her business, because she shrugs, wishes them a good night out and starts climbing up the stairs again.

Peter leans in closer to Stiles and whispers against his neck, so that she can’t hear: “I didn’t know you cared Stiles.”

It’s so completely unfair. Stiles doesn’t even think of Peter that way, he mostly just thinks of his as a potential threat and, more recently, his responsibility. But he’s not blind either and Peter is, objectively, pretty hot, and this whole situation is very, _very_ confusing.

“I don’t,” he groans, shaking the hand off and walking down the stairs.

“Liar,” Peter chuckles.

“You know, I was starting to think I missed the old Peter. I’m reconsidering this opinion.”

“The old Peter?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, opening the door and letting Peter through. “The one that isn’t all mopey and monosyllabic and depressed. The snarky one. As I said, reconsidering it hard.”

The jeep is parked down the street, and they thankfully don’t meet anyone else before they get in. Peter keeps his hood on, and Stiles drives them across town, taking good care of staying away from his dad’s usual patrol route and of not going over the limit.

When they get on the highway, though, Peter opens his window and pulls the hood down, letting the night air hit his face. The public lights they pass reflect quickly off his metal cheek, like little sparks. Peter’s hair mostly covers his fake ear, but it gleams through it.

It’s fortunate that there aren’t many cars on the highway at this our and that the road is completely straight, because Stiles can’t help stealing glances. He’s absolutely fascinated, and can’t quite believe that _he_ (and Danny, okay, mostly Danny) made that.

They fixed him up, replaced nature with science, then actually resurrected the dead. Stiles can’t help but think there should be consequences, something more than the whole not-healing thing Peter has to live with. Though he guesses that if you don’t have a science genius around, the not-healing thing is probably more of a big deal.

They get off the highway about thirty minutes later and drive into the woods. Stiles parks next to the road, at the start of a hiking trail that isn’t much frequented, or at least that wasn’t when he was a kid and his mom used to force his dad and him to go on hikes through the woods. 

When he cuts the engine, Peter doesn’t wait around and jumps out of the car. Stiles leans over his emptied seat and looks through the glove box for his flash light. Because not everyone has awesome werewolf night vision, thank you very much.

“I’ll just…be around,” Peter tells him. “Running. Don’t try to keep up.”

“I won’t,” Stiles replies, turning the flashlight on. “I’ll just walk for a little bit. Please don’t kill anyone if you happen to see humans around?”

Peter smirks. “I’ll try.”

Then he rolls his shoulders, lets the change take him over. He flashes his electric blue eyes at Stiles for a second before taking off.

Stiles really hopes there isn’t anyone camping out in the woods anywhere near them.

Peter’s disappeared in the thick of the wood, but Stiles takes the trail, because he doesn’t especially want to break a leg in the dark. Flashlight on the ground, he walks slowly, letting the air fill his lungs and memories from long ago fill his mind. Every now and then he can hear noises in the trees and he turns his flash light fast enough to catch a rustle of leaves, the tip of an owl’s wing, or, once a deer.

Somewhere pretty far out, he hears the howl of a wolf. It makes him slightly nervous but hopefully Peter is just enjoying being out there and not actually hunting anyone or anything.

Stiles keeps walking for a while, until his phone buzzes. He digs it out his pocket and checks Danny’s message.

_Ethan out of town for the next five days. Will take over P watch. You’re welcome._

Stiles realizes that he isn’t dancing with joy at the thought of getting rid of Peter for five days as he would have been a few weeks go. Okay, it’ll be nice to spend a little bit of time by himself, but he doesn’t _mind_ too much spending time with Peter, in spite of the uncomfortable silences.

 _Kay_ , he texts back and pockets his phone again. There’s a rustling of leaves on his left, and Stiles aims the flashlight there but can’t see anything. Another sound comes from his right and he turns around, starting to feel nervous as the flashlight only catches leaves again. Stiles’s heart starts racing as he turns toward another sound, and another, then all of a sudden a blue-eyed werewolf jumps on him from his left and pushes him against a tree.

Peter’s face is only partially shifted, his eyes shining blue and his teeth slightly too long but his facial hair and forehead look normal. He’s smirking at Stiles, keeping him trapped against the tree, one arm on each side.

“No one ever told you it was dangerous, walking alone at night in the woods?” Peter asks. “You never know what you might find. Or what could find you.”

“A lesson that means a lot coming from you, Little Red Riding Hood,” Stiles replies deadpan, even though his heart is still racing.

Peter’s smirk widens, and he leans forward, whispers against Stiles’s ear. “What tells you I didn’t _eat_ Little Red and stole her hood?”

Stiles swallows, then pushes Peter’s arms away from him. Peter makes a face but lets him go.

“I know because I gave you the freaking hoodie,” Stiles says, taking a step away from Peter. He’s slightly too freaked out to keep up the game. Also, yeah, slightly aroused because he’s kind of messed up, but that’s so not the point.

Peter chuckles and stretches his shoulders, wincing slightly as he turns completely back to human.

“I’d missed running,” he admits, bending down to pick up the flashlight Stiles had dropped.

“Did you maul any innocent bystander?” Stiles asks, as off-handedly as he can while he tries to bring his heart rate back to normal.

“Only a couple of rabbits,” he replies easily, flashing a grin at Stiles.

“I don’t even want to know if you’re being serious or not,” Stiles decides.

They makes their way back to the jeep in silence, Peter walking just slightly behind Stiles. It’s a little bit unnerving, but Stiles thinks that if Peter wanted to do anything to him he would have when he had him pressed against that tree. Which he refuses to think about too much.

***

Stiles stops the jeep in front of the apartment building and looks at Peter, who’s put his hood back up as soon as they got into the town even though it’s 3 am and there is literally no one out at this hour in this neighborhood.

Peter looks back and nods at him. “I…really needed that,” he says. “Thank you.”

It’s the first time Stiles can remember hearing Peter say thank you (sarcastic comments aside), and Stiles just stares at him, at a loss for words. Peter huffs, rolling his eyes, then opens his car door. As he jumps down, he stretches his left shoulder once again.

“Seriously though,” Stiles asks, “is your shoulder okay?”

“My shoulder is a mess of flesh, metal and electronics sewed together,” Peter replies. “It’s bound to hurt a little, I guess.”

It’s Stiles’s turn to roll his eyes, mumbling about stupid stubborn werewolves.

“You can’t heal,” he says, cutting the engine and climbing out of the jeep. “If something hurts, you have to let us know so we can fix it.”

Peter shrugs like he doesn’t care, but he does open the building door for Stiles. They get back to the flat, and Stiles takes out some tools after motioning to Peter to sit on the table. When he looks back, Peter has taken off the hoodie and the shirt, and Stiles tries not to look too hard at his chest. He walks up to him and looks more closely at the shoulder, focusing on the job at hands.

“So, what hurts, exactly?”

“There’s some pinching going on when I do this,” Peter says, moving his shoulder to the backwards.

One of the metal plates scrapes against the skin, and Stiles notices it’s sort of chaffed. He hums, not sure how to make it stop doing that.

“I think I need to sand it a little to make it slightly smaller,” he decides eventually. I can’t do it just like that though, I’d have to take it off.”

“Then take it off,” Peter replies snarkily.

“It’s gonna hurt,” Stiles clarifies, trying to raise a single eyebrow and feeling the second one climbing up with it.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Peter replies.

Stiles rolls his eyes again and grabs a screwdriver. He holds Peter’s shoulder with one hand (even though if Peter was to move Stiles couldn’t prevent it) and starts unscrewing the metal cover. He can clearly hear Peter grinding his teeth and holding his breath, and Stiles doesn’t want to imagine how it feels.

When he takes the plate off, he can catch a glimpse of all the wires and electronics that have replaces Peter’s nerves and muscles, as well as his metallic articulation.

“It looks pretty messy in there,” Peter comments through gritted teeth.

“It does the job,” Stiles replies.

He goes grab some sandpaper and starts making the metal cover slightly smaller, so it doesn’t rub and pinch Peter’s skin so much. Screwing it back on proves to be a little bit more challenging, because Peter actually flinches and hisses through his teeth, but eventually it is done.

Peter moves his shoulder back and forth a couple of times while Stiles stifles a yawn. “Yeah, that’s better.”

“Next time, ask me or Danny when something isn’t right,” Stiles says, putting everything away at a sluggish pace. He suddenly feels extenuated. “In fact, Danny is actually better at the whole robotics part of things, so if anything stops working correctly, talk to him immediately.”

“Danny’s barely ever here,” Peter points out.

“He’ll be here for the next few days, Ethan is out of town.” Stiles yawns, closing the tool box. “I should go to bed.”

“Yes, you should,” Peter says.

“Alright, see you later then,” Stiles says, moving towards the door.

“Oh no, you’re not driving in this state.” Peter tells him, grabbing his wrist and stopping him in his tracks.

“I have to get home one way or another,” Stiles says, trying to wrench his wrist free.

“You’ll get home tomorrow, after a few hours of sleep.”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Stiles whines, but his shoulders sag in defeat.

He follows Peter back to the bedroom and kicks off his shoes, then looks suspiciously at the bed, then at Peter.

“Yeah, no.”

Peter rolls his eyes and grabs his laptop. “I don’t need as much sleep as you do. I’ll be in the lab. Now sleep.”

Stiles watches him leave the room and bites his bottom lip. He’s not sure it’s a good idea, going to sleep with a potentially psychotic werewolf in the next room. It feels like it’ll leave him… _vulnerable_.

“If he was to do anything to you, he’d have done it in the woods,” he tells himself again firmly.

Stiles has a habit of crushing in his clothes, so he doesn’t bother about taking them off before flopping down on the bed. The sheets smell of Peter and slightly of him, as he does spend quite a lot of time hanging around and the bed is more comfortable to sit on than the chair.

Stiles falls asleep in a matter of seconds.

***

It’s been three days since Stiles took Peter to the woods (he tries not to chuckle at how much it sounds like taking a dog out for a walk), and since Danny is taking over cyberwolf-sitting for the week, Stiles hasn’t seen Peter since that awkward morning in which he bumped on him getting out of the shower. And smirking, like he knew exactly where Stiles’s mind was. Which he probably did, damn that werewolf hearing.

Stiles is playing some Call of Duty on his Xbox when his phone chimes. He looks down at his phone, which is somewhere on the floor near his foot, and sees Danny’s name. When he looks back up to the screen, he’s dead.

“Bah, I was playing terribly anyway,” he says, logging off before checking Danny’s message.

 _Oh my god, I’m so sorry I let you deal with him all the time,_ it says. _This is so boring._

Stiles shrugs. He doesn’t mind that much, really. Which is not something he’d even expected to think about spending time alone with creepy Peter. The phone chimes again.

_And now he’s looking longingly through the window. He looks so sad, I almost feel sorry for him._

Stiles hits the reply button and quickly texts back:

_Don’t let him know that, he’ll use it his advantage. :P_

They exchange a few more texts, and somehow Stiles ends up promising to swing by and keep Danny company while he keeps company to Peter. Because yep, that makes perfect sense. Stiles is secretly quite impress with the way Danny sneakily made him do that.

When he arrives at the apartment, Danny is tinkering with some hydraulic cables in the lab while Peter watches a rerun of America’s Next Top Model on the bedroom’s television. Stiles grabs a pack of chips in the kitchen and joins Peter on the bed, back resting against the wall.

“Why is the fake red-head pissed off?” he asks, opening the pack and holding it out to Peter.

“She’s always the one cleaning up after everyone’s mess,” Peter explains.

Danny wanders in during the girls’ underwater photo shoot and just stares at them for a moment. Peter makes a sarcastic comment on how the blonde’s face looks like she’s been eating limes and Stiles snorts.

“Is that what the two of you have been doing the last few weeks? Watching skinny girls throw fits and take scanitly-clad photos?”

“It’s actually the first time we watched that,” Stiles shrugs. “Come on, sit down and look at the pretty clothes.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m into fashion, Stiles.”

“You’re just no fun at all, are you?” Stiles asks, shaking his head. “We can switch channels if you want, right Peter?”

“Of course not, I want to know if the crazy one who thinks Jesus talks to her is gonna get kicked off,” Peter declares. “We can’t switch channels until she’s gone.”

“Dude, are you serious?” Stiles asks, eyeing Peter suspiciously.

Peter rolls his eyes and tosses the remote to Danny. “Pick something good,” he says.

They end up watching Masterchef, which is just cruel in Stiles’s opinion, because the only food they have is the kind you put in a microwave and by the end he’s craving something a bit more tasty.

***

Stiles swings by late in the evening at the end of the week. Peter’s mood seems to be slightly better during the afternoon visits (during which they marathon Star Wars and play on Stiles’s Xbox when he brings it along), although Stiles is very careful not to broach the subject of telling the pack about him. But Peter only really seems like himself is when he’s back out in the woods.

He doesn’t run as much as he did the previous time but ends up walking along the trail with Stiles, making one of his speeches about werewolf lore that Stiles knows contains _some_ information that could end up saving his life, drowned somewhere in a sea of useless, creepy details, like how werewolves in Eastern Europe have a tradition of eating the heart of a stag raw, while in human form, as a rite of passage into adulthood. The way he describes it is particularly meticulous and creepy.

“So, did you ever do that too?” Stiles asks, knowing he’ll probably regret it but too fascinated not to ask.

“What, eat a warm, bloody heart to express my adulthood?” Peter chuckles. “No, my eighteenth birthday included a treat to a fancy restaurant offered by my alpha, who also happened to be my sister-in-law. It was all very civilized. Until I snuck out in the middle of the night and hit the town’s clubs with a few friends, that is.”

“You had friends?” Stiles can’t help asking with a smirk.

“Of course not, I just threatened these people to eat _their_ hearts if they didn’t come with me,” Peter deadpans. He keeps silent for a few paces before continuing more quietly. “I had a few, but we weren’t that close. Hard to make real friends when you can’t quite be yourself around them. Plus, I’ve been told I’m arrogant, creepy and unhelpful.”

“Whoever said that is a very good judge of character,” Stiles smirks.

“He’s a brat with no self-preservation instincts,” Peter replies. “I mean, the guy takes walks in the woods with an undead, half-robot psychotic werewolf he doesn’t trust.”

“So you’re aware you’re psychotic?”

“Self-awareness is essential in this world, Stiles,” Peter says, like he’s some sort of wisdom guru.

They walk in silence for a little bit before Stiles says: “For the record, I _know_ that I shouldn’t, and that I probably really shouldn’t tell you either, but I trust you a little bit.”

“You do?” Peter asks, stopping.

“Yeah. Like, maybe not for everything, but…I know you care about the pack, or at least about Derek and Cora. And I trust you’re not going to kill me or do anything too horrible to me, because otherwise I’d already be in the morgue.”

A strange look passes in Peter’s eyes, too quick for Stiles to identify. Then Peter is smirking slightly again, taking a step forward to crowd Stiles.

“I’m not going to do anything _too_ horrible to you then?” he asks, voice dropping a little bit lower than usual. “And what not-too-horrible things do you think I still might do to you, um?”

Stiles’s heart summersaults, partly in fear, partly because his mind is oh-so-kindly providing him with ideas of things Peter could do to him. This is _not_ , however, something Stiles would trust Peter with, so he’s relieved when he’s saved from having to answer by the ring of his phone.

 _“Stiles, you need to come quickly!”_ Allison shouts in his ear. 

In the background there’s the sound of fighting, screaming, firearms and, faintly, of chanting. Allison hasn’t even finished her sentence that Stiles is already running in the direction of the car, phone pressed to his ear. They’ve been walking for about an hour already, it’s gonna take too long, he’s gonna be too late.

“What happened?” he asks, pointing his flashlight down to the ground so he doesn’t trip and fall.

“The hunters, they came back with a druid. They’ve trapped the pack at Deaton’s with magic, Stiles, nobody can go in or out. There are so many of them, I don’t know how long Scott and the others can…”

She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t have to.

“Where _is_ Deaton?”

“Out of town with Lydia, remember?”

“Right,” Stiles nods. Deaton had been helping Lydia fully understand her banshee nature, and he’d managed to arrange a meeting with an old banshee living in Maine. “I’ll be here as fast as I can,” he tells Allison, keeping for himself his fear that it’ll be too late.

“Stiles,” Peter says when he’s closed his phone.

Stiles turns his head sees Peter running next to him, eyes electric blue. He trips on the uneven trail, and Peter catches his arm, preventing him from falling but also stopping him.

“I can get there faster if I run through the woods,” Peter tells him through gritted teeth.

“You can’t do anything as long as I haven’t dealt with the magical barrier,” Stiles replies, tugging on his arm to try and free it.

“I know,” Peter says. “That’s why I need to do this.”

And in a seamless motion Peter tugs him closer, wraps his hand around Stiles’s waist and picks him up, throws him over his shoulder. The air leaves Stiles’s lungs with a loud “hoompf” as the werewolf starts running, cutting directly through the woods. 

It’s a bumpy ride to say the least, upside down, rebounding at each and every one of Peter’s leaps, the metal parts of his shoulder digging into Stiles’s belly. Stiles eventually wraps his arms around Peter’s waist, trying to mitigate the bouncing, but it doesn’t help much. All he can see is Peter’s back and, if he looks down, the ground rushing by incredibly fast. He’s getting dizzy and nauseous, so he just closes his eyes and presses his face in Peter’s red hoodie, and tries to think of something other than his friends getting shot.

Yeah, that doesn’t exactly work.

He’s not sure exactly how long it takes before the sound of Peter’s running changes from feet hitting dirt and arms brushing off leaves to feet on pavement, but Stiles is fairly certain that if he’d kept running on his own he probably wouldn’t have made it to the car yet, or barely reached it. Thankfully it’s the middle of the night and no one is around to see Peter rush through the streets with Stiles hanging over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Or if there are any random bystander, Stiles doesn’t see them from his vantage point. Given how fast Peter is going anyway, it’s pretty sure they’re just a blur. 

When Peter puts him down on his feet again, Stiles is a bit dizzy. Okay, he’s _very_ dizzy, but he doesn’t have time to think about it. Peter is standing five feet from the vet clinic’s door, growling, all wolfed out, as they hear another gunshot.

“Is that…?” Stiles hears Allison ask, and he hadn’t even noticed her. She’s standing next to him, staring at Peter while her father aiming his own shotgun in Peter’s direction, looking confused.

“Where’s the druid?” Stiles asks, and is glad that she’s always known how to focus when she turns her attention back to him.

“We managed to take him out, tied him up and gagged him. It didn’t lift the spell though.”

“Where?” Stiles asks again, and she points to a figure sitting on the ground against a wall.

Stiles walks up to the druid, then crouches down and goes through his pockets.

“Did he use any kind of token?” he asks Allison, who’d followed him. “Candle, wooden stick, bag of magical dust thingy?” The barrier is affecting humans and werewolves alike, Stiles has no idea how it works.

“I didn’t see anything,” Allison says. “Stiles, is that _Peter_?”

“I know the metal cheek and eat give him a bit of a different look, but he’s easy to recognize,” Stiles replies, opening the druid’s vest.

“Not at the moment he isn’t,” she says, and something in her voice makes him turn around to look.

Peter is more wolfed out than usual, his face half-turned into that of an actual wolf, arms and extra muscular and body hair grown in places Peter usually has none. It reminds Stiles of when Peter had been a crazed Alpha, turning into a horror movie monster, though it’s thankfully not as bad as that. In fact, his arms and shoulders have gotten so big that they’ve ripped through his shirt and the red hoodie, and Stiles can see how the metal covering his cybernetic parts is all distorted, how Peter is bleeding around it.

Peter is growling in the direction of the clinic still. Stiles shakes his head to stop staring and goes back to his search of the druid. Such a strong spell _cannot_ have been done without a catalyst. No freaking way. The druid wiggles in his bounds, trying to get away from Stiles’s hands, but the Argents do know how to tie someone up properly, and if Stiles wasn’t so worried about _everything_ right now he’d probably be amused by how dirty that sounds.

“Ah-ha!” he exclaims triumphantly when his fingers bump against something underneath the druid’s shirt. The man makes a noise around the gag in his mouth but Stiles ignores him as he reaches through his collar and grabs a blue crystal pendent. 

He pulls on the cord tying it around the druid’s neck, but unlike in movies it doesn’t come off, so Stiles hold out his hand in Allison’s direction, and a couple of seconds later he’s holding a knife. The druid’s eyes go wide, and he starts what’s probably screaming around his gag (it comes out as panicked _hmmmmmfs_ ). Stiles isn’t particularly careful about not cutting his skin when he cuts off the cord. After all, the guy was helping hunters murder his friends. He deserved to bleed a little.

Stiles wraps his hand around the crystal, which is slightly too warm against his skin, and concentrates, tries to feel the link between it and the barrier, of which he can feel the force even from over five feet away. He’s never done it before, never had to understand how a token he’s not familiar with is stabilizing a spell he knows nothing about. Eyes closed, Stiles tries to shut down everything around him and _focus_.

He can’t do it, he realizes pretty fast. Not here, not with everything going on around him. He doesn’t have the time nor the calmness it would require. He opens his eyes and his hand, looks down at the blue crystal reflecting the light of a nearby streetlamp.

Then he smashes it against the wall.

There’s a rush of energy coming out of the crystal that knocks Stiles down on his ass, then Stiles can hear a door being banged down. When he looks up, Stiles catches a glimpse of Allison and her dad rushing inside the clinic. Stiles’s head is ringing and his hand is bleeding where the crystal shards cut into it, but he forces himself on his feet.

He has to hold himself up against the wall because of the dizziness, and he can hear multiple gunshots during the time it takes him to make his way to the clinic. When he gets inside, it’s all over.

The hunters are dead. All of them. Not knocked out, or wounded, dead-dead. Some of them have been shot, others have clearly been killed by the wolves. By some sort of miracle, none of the werewolves are dead. Well, at least so far. Isaac is cradled in Scott’s arms, bleeding profusely but smiling weekly at Alison. Ethan has been shot in the leg, and Stiles knows he’s going to have to find an antidote somewhere in the mess of the clinic for the wolfsbane poisoning. Judging by the way Cora’s having difficulty breathing, she’s been poisoned too, probably via some kind of aerosol. Derek’s in bad shape too, but his wounds seem to be healing fast.

Pretty much everyone is staring at Peter, who’s standing over the corpse of two hunters. There’s blood dripping down his arms, and some of it comes from the gash on his left arm but most of it clearly belonged to other people. He’s breathing heavily, looking down at the people he evidently killed, refusing to face the pack.

Stiles’s dizziness is slowly receding, thankfully, so he doesn’t have to hold on to the wall to make his way to Peter. He puts his unharmed hand on the cyberwolf’s good shoulder (the other one is a mess, and judging by the way his left hand is twitching some of the wiring needs to be repaired). Peter looks up at him with sad, human eyes.

“It’s okay, dude, it’s gonna be okay.”

Peter nods, so quick and small Stiles almost misses it, then take a deep breath and turns around, facing the pack.

“Well, it seems you aren’t capable of handling things without me. Scott, I’m disappointed in your leadership. I expected more from a true Alpha.” 

Peter’s casual, kind of caustic tone throws Stiles off for a second. If he hadn’t seen the look on Peter’s face right before, hadn’t known how much it had hurt him to stay away from the pack, Stiles would have thought Peter was a real asshole.

He kind of still is, Stiles knows, but in the same way Stiles is when he makes fun of serious things so he doesn’t have to let them affect him. It’s only at that moment that Stiles realizes exactly how much Peter and him have in common.

It takes a while to explain things, while at the same time try to treat those who need immediate help (Isaac, Ethan, then Cora) and deal with Stiles’s dad when he shows up with Danny. Stiles pushes through the dizziness and the throbbing of his own hands. Everyone helps out as much as they can, except Peter who mostly just leans against a wall and watches until Stiles shouts at him to help him hold Ethan down while he presses burning wolfsbane into his wound.

“Can I talk to you?” Derek asks Stiles when he thinks he’s finally going to have a second to breathe again.

Stiles sighs, but he follows a grim looking Derek outside in the back of the clinic. A couple of cats hiss at them in their cages, still unnerved by the smell of blood, but them and a turtle were thankfully the only animals there tonight, so the room is pretty quiet.

“What is it?” Stiles asks.

Derek, doesn’t reply, but he punches Stiles in the guts. It’s painful, even though Stiles knows if Derek had put all of his strength into it he would most likely not be able to breathe at all anymore.

“Why?” he asks, bent over in pain.

“Where do I even _start_?” Derek shouts angrily. “With the fact that you think you can play God? Haven’t you learned anything about consequences, ever? About the fact that you dragged Danny into your little experiments? Or about how you didn’t bother to tell Cora and me that our only relative is freaking _alive_?”

“Or, you know, your best friend?” Scott asks calmly from the doorway.

Stiles is sorry, he really is. Scott knows him well enough to read it on his face, if Stiles can judge by the sigh he lets out. Scott shakes his head and walks up to them, putting a hand on Derek’s shoulder.

“Come on, we’ll talk about all this tomorrow. We need to bring Isaac back to your place so he can rest and heal up properly, and the sheriff is asking us to clear the scene. Him and Alison’s dad are going to stage some gang-related showdown.”

Stiles can see Derek wants to argue, to shout some more, and that’s rich coming from someone as secretive as him. Sharing information has never been Derek’s _forte_. 

When he gets back into the main room, Cora slaps him, then takes his hand and leaches the pain out from it. Just from his hand though, so his stomach and cheek still hurt, a painful reminder that he seriously pissed off the Hales. Well, most of them.

***

Stiles is fiddling with the bandage around his hand while he watches Danny finish repairing Peter’s cybernetic shoulder. They gave him painkillers, but they didn’t work so in the end Stiles had applied so of his tranquilizing wolfsbane around the wound. Peter said it worked, but Stiles can still see the way his jaw is clenched in pain. It’s almost frightening, how well he can read Peter now.

“There, I’m done,” Danny says, laying down his tools. “I’ll let you close him up and take care of the gash on his arm, it’s nothing that you can’t do. I need to be with Ethan now.”

Stiles nods in understanding as Danny quickly washes his hands. Then Danny is gone and it’s just Peter, sitting on the table shirtless, and Stiles, carefully screwing the metal plates covering his cybernetic parts back on.

Sewing up Peter’s arm after that is easy, since Danny already took care of repairing the blood vessel that had been nicked. Seriously, if the man doesn’t pursue a carrier in robotics he could always be a doctor. Stiles sews the skin back together, fighting against the nausea it provokes in him. When he’s finished, he drags his fingers along the closed wound that’ll never scar.

“Thank you,” he tells Peter softly, without looking up.

“I believe _I_ am the one who should thank you right now,” Peter says, sounding amused.

Stiles shakes his head. “Thank you for carrying me. Thank you for helping, for _wanting_ to help. Thank you for proving me we made the right choice bringing you back.”

He looks up at Peter then, and Peter is smiling, this small, satisfied smile he has when he’s pleased with himself. But his eyes are betraying that he’s actually touched by that. Peter slides off the table so he’s standing right in front of Stiles, crowding him. 

“But of course,” Stiles smirks, “if you want to thank me, go right ahead!”

Peter raises an eyebrow, playful and way too sexy for Stiles’s good. He knows Peter can tell the effect he has on him, that he’s been able to tell from the start. This is such a bad idea, Stiles tells himself for the hundredth time. But he doesn’t quite want to resist anymore.

“Hmmm,” Peter hum, putting a hand on his chin, a single finger raised and touching his lips. “And how exactly should I show you how _grateful_ I am?”

Peter is smirking like the bastard he is. He’s been enjoying making Stiles feel uncomfortable every now and then for weeks now, and he’s damn good at it too. Stiles is tired from being uncomfortable. In facts, he wants to get very, _very_ comfortable.

“I have a few ideas,” he says cockily. “But are you up to the challenge?”

Peter’s smirk widens, to the point that it’s almost a real smile.

“Let’s see.”


End file.
